Digital images, such as still images obtained by a digital camera, and digital video, require significant memory resources when stored in a non-compressed manner, represented by a full data set. Transmission of the full data set representing the digital images and/or video would require significant network resources, such as communication bandwidth. Video is especially problematic, as a single video may include thousands of individual frames. Storage and/or transmission of the full data set for each image may not be possible in many cases, or otherwise overwhelm processing and network resources.
Moreover, as quality and resolution capabilities improve in both cameras (still and video) and display screens, the amount of data generated per image continues to increase. Video based applications running on mobile devices (e.g., Smartphones and tablet computers) that rely on transmission of the video generate a large amount of network traffic, which is especially problematic for wireless networks.
Different solutions for compression of still digital images and digital video have been developed, to reduce the size of the image and video data, and thereby reduce the necessary storage resources and the network resources.
For example, Sullivan et al., “Overview of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standard” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology Vol. 22, No. 12, December 2012 describe “High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is currently being prepared as the newest video coding standard of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group. The main goal of the HEVC standardization effort is to enable significantly improved compression performance relative to existing standards—in the range of 50% bit-rate reduction for equal perceptual video quality.”